Julian raised his glass of water with a brilliantly artificial smile. "Shouldn't all Nephilim information be shared? We fight the same demons. If one branch of Nephilim has an advantage, isn't that unfair?"
"Not necessarily," said Samantha Larkspear, the female half of the twin Centurions Emma had met the day before. Her brother's name was Dane; they shared the same thin, whippety faces, pale skin, and straight dark hair. "Not everyone has the training to use every tool, and a weapon you don't know how to wield is wasted."
"Everyone can learn," said Mark.
"Then perhaps one day you will attend the Scholomance and be trained," said the Centurion from Mumbai. Her name was Divya Joshi.
"It's unlikely the Scholomance would accept someone with faerie blood," said Zara.
"The Clave is hidebound," said Diego. "That is true."
"I dislike the word 'hidebound,' " said Zara. "What they are is traditional. They seek to restore the separations between Downworlders and Shadowhunters that have always been in place. Mixing creates confusion."
"I mean, look at what's happened with Alec Lightwood and Magnus Bane," said Samantha, waving her fork. "Everyone knows that Magnus uses his influence with the Lightwoods to get the Inquisitor to let Downworlders off the hook. Even for things like murder."
"Magnus would never do that," Emma said. She'd stopped eating, though she'd been starving when they'd sat down.
"And the Inquisitor doesn't try Downworlders--only Shadowhunters," said Julian. "Robert Lightwood couldn't 'let Downworlders off the hook' if he wanted to."
"Whatever," said Jessica Beausejours, a Centurion with a faint French accent and rings on all her fingers. "The Downworlder-Shadowhunter Alliance will be shut down soon enough."
"No one's shutting it down," said Cristina. Her mouth was a tight line. "That's a rumor."
"Speaking of rumors," said Samantha, "I heard Bane tricked Alec Lightwood into falling in love with him using a spell." Her eyes glittered, as if she couldn't decide if she found the idea appealing or disgusting.
"That's not true," said Emma, her heart beating fast. "That is a lie."
Manuel raised an eyebrow at her. Dane laughed. "I wonder what will happen when it wears off, in that case," he said. "Bad news for Downworlders if the Inquisitor's not so friendly."
Ty looked bewildered. Emma could hardly blame him. None of Zara's circle seemed to care about facts. "Didn't you hear Julian?" he said. "The Inquisitor doesn't supervise cases where Downworlders have broken the Accords. He doesn't--"
Livvy put her hand on his wrist.
"We all support the Accords here," said Manuel, leaning back in his chair.
"The Accords were a fine idea," said Zara. "But every tool needs sharpening. The Accords require refining. Warlocks should be regulated, for instance. They are too powerful, and too independent. My father plans to suggest a registry of warlocks to the Council. Every warlock must give their information to the Clave and be tracked. If successful, it will be expanded to all Downworlders. We can't have them running around without us being able to keep tabs on them. Look what happened with Malcolm Fade."
"Zara, you sound ridiculous," said Jon Cartwright, one of the older Centurions--about twenty-two, Emma would have guessed. Jace and Clary's age. The only thing Emma could remember about him was that he had a girlfriend, Marisol. "Like an ancient Council member, afraid of change."
"Agreed," said Rayan. "We're students and fighters, not lawmakers. Whatever your father may be doing, it's not relevant to the Scholomance."
Zara looked indignant. "It's just a registry--"
"Am I the only one who's read X-Men and realizes why this is a bad idea?" said Kit. Emma had no idea when he'd reappeared, but he had, and was idly twirling pasta on his fork.
Zara began to frown, then brightened. "You're Kit Herondale," she said. "The lost Herondale."
"I didn't realize I was lost," said Kit. "I never felt lost."
"It must be exciting, suddenly finding out you're a Herondale," Zara said. Emma restrained the urge to point out that if you didn't know much about Shadowhunters, finding out you were a Herondale was about as exciting as finding out you were a new species of snail. "I met Jace Herondale once."
She looked around expectantly.
"Wow," said Kit. He really was a Herondale, Emma thought. He'd managed to insert Jace-levels of indifference and sarcasm into one word.
"I bet you can't wait to get to the Academy," said Zara. "Since you're a Herondale, you'll certainly excel. I could put in a good word for you."
Kit was silent. Diana cleared her throat. "So what are your plans for tomorrow, Zara, Diego? Is there anything the Institute can do to assist you?"
"Now that you mention it," Zara said, "it would be incredibly useful . . ."
Everyone, even Kit, leaned forward with interest.
"If, while we were gone during the day, you did our laundry. Ocean water does ruin clothes quickly, don't you find?"
*
Night fell with the suddenness of shadows in the desert, but despite the sound of waves coming in through her window, Cristina couldn't sleep.
Thoughts of home tore at her. Her mother, her cousins. Better, past days with Diego and Jaime: She remembered a weekend she had spent with them once, tracking a demon in the dilapidated ghost town of Guerrero Viejo. The dreamlike landscape all around them: half-drowned houses, feathery weeds, buildings long discolored by water. She had lain on a rock with Jaime under uncountable stars, and they had told each other what they wanted most in the world: she, to end the Cold Peace; he, to bring honor back to his family.
Exasperated, she got out of bed and went downstairs, with only witchlight to illuminate her steps. The stairs were dark and quiet, and she found her way out the back door of the Institute with little noise.
Moonlight swept across the small dirt lot where the Institute's car was parked. Behind the lot was a garden, where white marble classical statues poked incongruously out of the desert sand.
Cristina missed her mother's rose garden with a sudden intensity. The scent of the flowers, sweeter than desert sage; her mother walking between the orderly rows. Cristina used to joke that her mother must have a warlock's help in keeping the flowers blooming even during the hottest summer.
She moved farther away from the house, toward the rows of hollyleaf cherry and alder trees. Drawing closer to them, she saw a shadow and froze, realizing she had brought no weapons with her. Stupid, she thought--the desert was full of dangers, not all of them supernatural. Mountain lions didn't distinguish between mundanes and Nephilim.
It wasn't a mountain lion. The shadow moved closer; she tensed, then relaxed. It was Mark.
The moonlight turned his hair silvery white. His feet were bare under the hems of his jeans. Astonishment crossed his face as he saw her; then he walked up to her without hesitation and put a hand on her cheek.
"Am I imagining you?" he said. "I was thinking about you, and now here you are."
It was such a Mark thing to say, a frank statement of his emotions. Because faeries couldn't lie, she thought, and he had grown up around them, and learned how to speak of love and loving with Kieran, who was proud and arrogant but always truthful. Faeries did not associate truth with weakness and vulnerability, as humans did.
It made Cristina feel braver. "I was thinking about you, too."
Mark feathered his thumb across her cheekbone. His palm was warm on her skin, cradling her head. "What about me?"
"The look on your face when Zara and her friends were talking about Downworlders during dinner. Your pain . . ."
He laughed without humor. "I should have expected it. Had I been an active Shadowhunter for the past five years, I would doubtless be more used to such talk."
"Because of the Cold Peace?"
He nodded. "When a decision like that is made by a government, it emboldens those who are already prejudiced to speak their deepest thoughts of hate. They assume they are simply brave enough to say what everyone really
thinks."
"Mark--"
"In Zara's mind, I am hated," said Mark. His eyes were shadowed. "I am sure her father is part of that group that demands Helen remain prisoned on Wrangel Island."
"She will come back," Cristina said. "Now that you have come home, and fought so loyally for Shadowhunters, surely they will let her go."
Mark shook his head, but all he said was: "I am sorry about Diego."
She reached up and put her hand over his, his fingers light and cool as willow branches. She wanted to touch him more, abruptly, wanted to test the feel of his skin under his shirt, the texture of his jawline, where he had clearly never shaved and never needed to. "No," she said. "You're not, not really. Are you?"
"Cristina," Mark breathed, a little helplessly. "Can I . . . ?"
Cristina shook her head--if she actually let him ask, she'd never be able to say no. "We can't," she said. "Emma."
"You know that's not real," Mark said. "I love Emma, but not like that."
"But it's important, what she's doing." She drew away from Mark. "Julian has to believe it."
He looked at her in puzzlement and she remembered: Mark didn't know. Not about the curse, not that Julian loved Emma, or that Emma loved him.
"Everyone has to believe it. And besides," she added hastily, "there's Kieran. You only just ended things with him. And I just ended things with Diego."
He only looked more puzzled. She supposed faeries had never adopted the human ideas of giving each other space and having time to get over relationships.
And maybe they were stupid ideas. Maybe love was love and you should take it when you found it. Certainly her body was screaming at her mind to shut up: She wanted to put her arms around Mark, wanted to hold him as he held her, feel his chest against hers as his expanded with breath.
Something echoed out in the darkness. It sounded like the snap of an enormous branch, followed by a slow, dragging noise. Cristina whirled, reaching for her balisong. But it was inside, on her nightstand.
"Do you think it's the Centurions' night patrol?" she whispered to Mark.
He was looking out into the darkness too, narrow-eyed. "No. That was not a human noise." He took out two seraph blades and pressed one into her hand. "Nor was it an animal."
The weight of the blade in Cristina's hand was familiar and comforting. After a moment's pause to apply a Night Vision rune, she followed Mark into the desert shadows.
*
Kit opened his bedroom door a crack and peered through.
The hallway was deserted. No Ty sitting outside his door, reading or lying on the floor with headphones on. No lights seeping from underneath other doors. Just the dim glow of the rows of white lights that ran across the ceiling.
He half-expected alarms to go off as he crept through the silent house and opened the front door of the Institute, some kind of shrieking whistle or burst of lights. But there was nothing--just the sound of an ordinary heavy door creaking open and shut behind him.
He was outside, on the porch above the steps that led toward the trampled grass in front of the Institute, and then the road to the highway. The view over the cliff and down to the sea was bathed in moonlight, silver and black, a white path slashing across the water.
It was beautiful here, Kit thought, slinging his duffel bag over his shoulder. But not beautiful enough to stay. You couldn't trade a beach view for freedom.
He started down the stairs. His foot hit the first step and went out from under him as he was yanked backward. His duffel bag went flying. A hand was gripping his shoulder, hard; Kit wrenched himself sideways, nearly falling down the steps, and flung out his arm, colliding with something solid. He heard a muffled grunt--there was a barely visible figure, just a shadow among the shadows, looming over him, blocking the moon.
A second later they were both falling, Kit thudding to the porch on his back, the dark shadow collapsing on top of him. He felt sharp knees and elbows poke into him and a moment later a light flared: one of those stupid little stones they called witchlights.
"Kit," said a voice above him--Tiberius's voice. "Stop thrashing." Ty shook his dark hair out of his face. He was kneeling over Kit--sitting on his solar plexus, pretty much, which made it hard to breathe--dressed all in black the way Shadowhunters did when they went out to fight. Only his hands and face were bare, very white in the darkness.
"Were you running away?" he said.
"I was going for a walk," said Kit.
"No, you're lying," said Ty, eyeing Kit's duffel bag. "You were running away."
Kit sighed and let his head fall back with a thump. "Why do you care what I do?"
"I'm a Shadowhunter. We help people."
"Now you're lying," said Kit, with conviction.
Ty smiled. It was a genuine, light-up-your-face-type smile, and it made Kit remember the first time he'd met Ty. Ty hadn't been sitting on him then, but he had been holding a dagger to Kit's throat.
Kit had looked at him and forgotten the knife and thought, Beautiful.
Beautiful like all the Shadowhunters were beautiful, like moonlight shearing off the edges of broken glass: lovely and deadly. Beautiful things, cruel things, cruel in that way that only people who absolutely believed in the rightness of their cause could be cruel.
"I need you," Ty said. "You might be surprised to hear that."
"I am," Kit agreed. He wondered if anyone was going to come running. He couldn't hear approaching feet, or voices.
"What happened to the night patrol?" he demanded.
"They're probably half a mile from here," said Ty. "They're trying to keep demons from getting near the Institute, not keep you from getting out. Now do you want to know what I need you for, or not?"
Almost against his will, Kit was curious. He propped himself up on his elbows and nodded. Ty was sitting on him as casually as if Kit was a sofa, but his fingers--long, quick fingers, deft with a knife, Kit recalled--hovered near his weapons belt. "You're a criminal," Ty said. "Your father was a con man and you wanted to be like him. Your duffel bag is probably full of things you stole from the Institute."
"It . . . ," Kit began, and trailed off as Ty reached over, yanked the zipper on the bag down, and eyed the cache of stolen daggers, boxes, scabbards, candlesticks, and anything else Kit had scavenged revealed in the moonlight. ". . . might be," Kit concluded. "What's that got to do with you, anyway? None of it's yours."
"I want to solve crimes," Ty said. "To be a detective. But nobody here cares about that sort of thing."
"Didn't you just all catch a murderer?"
"Malcolm sent a note," Ty said in a withering tone, as if he were disappointed that Malcolm had ruined crime-solving with his confession. "And then he admitted he did it."
"That does rather narrow down the list of suspects," Kit said. "Look, if you need me so you can arrest me for fun, I feel I should point out it's the sort of thing you can only do once."
"I don't want to arrest you. I want a partner. Someone who knows about crimes and people who commit them so they can help me."
A lightbulb went off in Kit's head. "You want a--wait, you've been sleeping outside my room because you want a sort of Watson for your Sherlock Holmes?"
Ty's eyes lit up. They still moved restlessly around Kit as if he were reading him, examining him, never quite meeting Kit's own, but that didn't dim their glow. "You know about them?"
Everyone in the whole world knows about them, Kit almost said, but instead only said, "I'm not going to be anybody's Watson. I don't want to solve crimes. I don't care about crimes. I don't care if they're being committed, or not committed--"
"Don't think of them as crimes. Think of them as mysteries. Besides, what else are you going to do? Run away? And go where?"
"I don't care--"
"You do, though," said Ty. "You want to live. Just like everyone else does. You don't want to be trapped, is all." He cocked his head to the side, his eyes a depthless almost-white in the witchlight glow. The moon had gone behind a clou
d, and it was the only illumination.
"How'd you know I was going to run away tonight?"
"Because you were getting used to it here," said Ty. "You were getting used to us. But the Centurions, you don't like them. Livvy noticed it first. And after what Zara said today about you going to the Academy--you must feel like you're not going to have any choices about what you do, after this."
It was true, surprisingly so. Kit couldn't find the words to explain how he'd felt at the dinner table. As if becoming a Shadowhunter meant being shoved into a machine that would chew him up and spit out a Centurion.
"I look at them," he said, "and I think, 'I can't possibly be like them, and they can't stand anyone different.' "
"You don't have to go to the Academy," said Ty. "You can stay with us as long as you want."
Kit doubted Ty had the authority to make a promise like that, but he appreciated it regardless. "As long as I help you solve mysteries," he said. "How often do you have mysteries to solve, or do I have to wait until another warlock goes crazypants?"
Ty leaned against one of the pillars. His hands fluttered at his sides like night butterflies. "Actually, there's a mystery going on right now."
Kit was intrigued despite himself. "What is it?"
"I think they're not here for the reason they claim they are. I think they're up to something," Ty said. "And they're definitely lying to us."
"Who's lying?"
Ty's eyes sparkled. "The Centurions, of course."
*
The next day was blistering hot, one of those rare days when the air seemed to stand still and the proximity of the ocean offered no relief. When Emma arrived, late, for breakfast in the dining room, the rarely used ceiling fans were whirling full speed.
"Was it a sand demon?" Dane Larkspear was asking Cristina. "Akvan and Iblis demons are common in the desert."
"We know that," said Julian. "Mark already said it was a sea demon."
"It slithered off the moment we shone witchlight upon it," said Mark. "But it left behind a stink of seawater, and wet sand."
"I can't believe there aren't perimeter wards here," Zara said. "Why has no one ever seen to it? I ought to ask Mr. Blackthorn--"
"The perimeter wards failed to keep out Sebastian Morgenstern," said Diana. "They weren't used again after that. Perimeter wards rarely work."